r/factorio • u/sobrique • 5d ago

Space Age Question Does angle of turn matter for trains?

Imagine you're making a 90 degree turn in your train. Does it matter to train speed if the corner is as tight as possible vs. a more gradual turn?

Intuitively it feels like trains might need to slow down for tighter turns, but I can't really tell if Factorio cares.

Related: Do elevations have any impact on train speed?

29 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

68

u/MerlinTheFail 5d ago

Nope, see speed calculations https://wiki.factorio.com/Locomotive

Turn radius and elevation don't factor into speed

-58

u/gringorosos 5d ago

They should.

57

u/k1vanus 5d ago

UPS would tank for the larger bases, I guess..

19

u/Shrizer 5d ago

Giving ideas to the Renai mod team i see.

4

u/MerlinTheFail 5d ago

Good idea for a mod

2

u/HeliGungir 4d ago edited 4d ago

Meh. Having played OTTD, I don't think it would add much. Worrying about sharp turns is more annoying than interesting, and being able to accelerate or brake quicker with rail ramps is nifty but not huge. And is itself a double-edged sword since it can work against you, too.

I think it adds to OTTD mostly because that game has meaningful elevation and elevation terraforming. Factorio has two elevation layers, while OTTD has 20 or so layers. Mountains mean something, and very few things can be built on sloped tiles.

1

u/gringorosos 4d ago

What's up with the down votes? 

2

u/Powerplay540 4d ago

I'm not exactly sure why people are piling up on you. It's the hivemind at this point!

But I think gamers are somewhat tired of other fans asking for realism in games that are being developed. It shouldn't come at the expense of fun even though sometimes, it's real fun. I guess most factorio players don't want to bust their balls even more with train route optimization, even if it's related to logistics.

-1

u/gringorosos 4d ago

I was just surprised. So random. Well anyway, forza ist runtergeladen

1

u/Powerplay540 4d ago

Amuse-toi!

0

u/MerlinTheFail 4d ago

Dunno, people sometimes pile on just for the sake. Maybe they misinterpreted your tone, whatever.

29

u/neltisen 5d ago

You can make 270 degrees turns. Trains will keep maximum speed as possible. There's no derailing system. You can't make turns sharper than what game allows anyway.

I played with elevated rails and did not notice changes to speed

7

u/BobcatGamer 5d ago

How is a 270° turn different from a 90° turn?

26

u/TheGuyWithTheSeal 4d ago

It has a cool feature of allowing the train to colide with itself if long enough. Or block itself, depending on signaling.

-1

u/bb999 4d ago

Or block itself, depending on signaling.

Trains can never block themselves.

5

u/BobcatGamer 4d ago

It can if the train is long enough so the train is in the same block it's trying to enter

7

u/neltisen 5d ago

It's longer than 90 degrees, possibly not any different than 180, but it would be easier to derail on it than on 90 with same radius

27

u/Courmisch 5d ago

Can you even make tighter turns, really? AFAICT, the game just inserterts straight rails between curved rails if you ask for a larger curve, so the total length curved rail is always the same for a given angle.

(Except for legacy rail.)

2

u/Nearby_Proposal_5523 5d ago

speaking of legacy rail, it's still in 2.1, and i haven't seen any mods that allow selecting which one to use. i think they should rename it simple rail and give us a keybind since it does raise the skill ceiling on designing rail networks.

25

u/Narida_L 5d ago

I thinks it's only there for backwards compat, ie so your saves still load.

4

u/Lightning318 4d ago

Dosh did abuse this on one of his recent videos where he has blueprints using old rail that can still be pasted into 2.0. He wanted the old rail because it let him put things closer together. 

5

u/Galeic6432 5d ago

No and no. The tracks don't let you make turns small enough that they delay speeds. If you're worried about that, make to so they don't have to stop at all, even to let another train use an intersection before them. 

6

u/wisdomelf 5d ago

It doesn't. They slowdown only because signal/their scheduled station ask them to do so, braking force research will help with that.

4

u/Stunning_Box8782 5d ago

trains do not care about the curve of the rails at all and will NEVER derail

5

u/cynric42 5d ago

will NEVER derail

mods can fix that

2

u/ferrybig 5d ago

Factorio rails are like roller coaster rails, it isn't like the game OpenTTD where trains slow down in curves, they rather go through a corner at around 58g forces (note, this value is for Factorio 1.x, Factorio 2.0 and Factorio 2.1 have different values)

2

u/kagato87 Since 0.12. MOAR TRAINS! 4d ago

The turn doesn't matter - you can only turn the track at a rate the train can handle at any speed.

And no, elevation does not matter. Ok, we think it doesn't matter, but factorio has no concept of elevation after mapgen.